MB: Welcome to this week's edition of Game Freaks. For the fi rst time in the short history of this column, we're going to do a non-Super Nintendo game. When the Game Boy was released, it was the fi rst time that a video game system was so portable with so much variety in games. One of the fl agship titles for the Game Boy was Kirby's Dream Land. With this generally well-respected game that launched a number of spin-off titles, Kirby became a video game icon. Let's see what Mr. White has to say about this game...

MW: Ah, Kirby's Dream Land...the black-and-white adventure of a little puffball that would start one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. No one can deny the quality that Kirby's Dream Land brought to gaming, especially premiering as it did on the classic Game Boy. The classic Game Boy, by the way, will henceforth be referred to lovingly as "the grey brick."

See, portable gaming was a crazy new idea at this time, and mostly was composed of rehashes or sequels of older games for non-portable systems, such as Mario Land and Metroid II. Kirby had the unique distinction of being a totally original game for the grey brick, with new characters and a relatively unique approach to the platformer formula. Rather than punching, kicking, or even plumber-stomping your way to victory, you just ate anything that got in your way...and used it as ammo.

Controls for Kirby were simple, yet remarkably diversified given the control scheme on the grey brick. Kirby could run, jump, duck, and do all of the typical platformer hero actions, as well as fl y through a principle that defi es physics (inhaling air to become lighter than air?). The classic Kirby move, inhaling your enemies, allowed you to shoot them as energy "stars" at other enemies. One of my only reservations about KDL is that the unique and often silly "power steal" mechanism from the later Kirby games had not yet been developed. Stealing the abilities of Kirby's enemies began to show up in later Nintendo and Game Boy Color adventures.

Plot in KDL was, as with most platformers, quite sparse: Kirby is called upon to restore the dreams of the residents of Dream Land after they were stolen by the giant penguin King Dedede. I swear whoever dreamed up Dedede was on some kind of drug ("The giant penguins are everywhere!"), but that's totally beside the point.

While only 4-bit (no color) and with relatively easy gameplay (took me about an hour and a half to beat the fi rst time I played it), KDL deserves high praise for being an innovator and for spawning a pink, puffy legend. Hats off to a fi ne, fi ne game.

Oh, and I would imagine that hooking this up to a GameCube with a GBA attachment would be really, really, super-cool.

Rating: 8.5/10

MB: For being on a system that was relatively weak in power compared to other systems of the day, Kirby's Dream Land was quite innovative on all accounts. This was one of the reasons it sold so well, but not the only one. It was also just a lot of fun to play. KDL's place on the top of the list of Game Boy games is well-deserved.

The story is fairly simple and bizarre, but this isn't really a problem because it sets up KDL as a game that all ages can play. Also, since the character of Kirby is pretty cute, it wouldn't really work to have some kind of dark story. But, as I said, the plot isn't important. What really works is the gameplay.

For one, the gameplay is simple: you run around, suck up enemies, and shoot them back at other enemies to defeat them. There are also jumps to be jumped, and pits to fl y over (using the insane air-sucking procedure my colleague described above). While this seems like it would be easy and boring, the swarms of enemies and sometimes amazingly diffi cult bosses make this game challenging enough for hardcore gamers, though still not too diffi cult for younger gamers.

While it doesn't seem that impressive to look at now, the graphics in this game are absolutely amazing--both for the day and for the system. Kirby and the Dream World he travels through are impressively rendered, with a lot of detail for black and white graphics. It's interesting to note that even as the series progressed, the graphics hardly changed at all. They started at a fairly high point, and thus didn't change very much.

This game is definitely worth buying to this day. I've beaten this game numerous times, and it's always still a good time. This, along with Kirby's Adventure on the NES, is the best game of the Kirby series in my opinion, and is defi nitely worth your time.

Rating: 9/10